As drones become ubiquitous, the chances increase that a drone may inadvertently or intentionally fly into a restricted air space. Examples of restricted airspace include but are not limited to airports, airplane flight paths, no-fly zones, buildings/skyscrapers, military reservations, stadiums, private property, and other geographic boundaries. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and state agencies continue to develop more guidelines and regulations for drone operations of all kinds (civil, commercial, recreational, etc.) in the United States. However, presently, there are no systems that effectively prevent or otherwise restrict a drone from flying into restricted air space. There is also nothing that effectively prevents drones from being flown over private property.
Because drones are conspicuous, particularly when making an approach for landing, and because the public is becoming more aware of the growing use of drones for various purposes, drones could become vulnerable to tampering. For example, the control of a drone might be intercepted or interfered with in-flight such as by intercepting, jamming, and/or imitating (e.g., pirate signals) global positioning or Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals in order to direct a drone to a surrogate landing zone. A drone may lose communications with a GNSS or other navigational system due to terrain features, dead spots, or GNSS outage, and may become lost, thereby putting the drone at risk. In some cases, repeated “hijacking” of drones in an area may lead to an inference that a particular area should be avoided. However, presently there is nothing that prevents drones from being flown into high-risk areas where hijacking is likely.